Interview With The Abyss

Content Warning: Depression thoughts.

Hello. I have a healthy level of self esteem. I don’t always feel great about myself, but it’s unequivocally when I deserve to feel bad about something. I can tell the line, bright and clear. And my mind practically has a wolverine healing factor for keeping me feeling hunkydory most of the time.

Most people feel worse about themselves than I do. Hard for me to relate, to know why or what it’s like. But I’ve had a long association with somebody who has an especially rare mix of high levels of self respect and black hole levels of self esteem. It’s a window into another world that can be educational to look into – if you’re brave enough to deal with the damage of it looking back.

Here I present a loose conversation on the topic of self esteem, between somebody who has it and somebody who will never know what it’s like to be OK with one’s self. I introduce you once again to The Abyss, my mans The Beast from Seattle.

 

 

GAS: Beast, how do you like being on the Great American Satan Show?

 

 

BfS: It’s just swell, thank you.

GAS: Nice, nice.  So you’re a specimen today, if that’s alright.  Can you bear the scrutiny of the howling masses of I think seven people who see my articles and probably won’t read them if the word count creeps up like this?

BfS: I think I can handle it.

GAS: So in our past discussions, we’ve reached some ideas about what self esteem is.  Until I gained some perspective on what it’s like for someone without, I didn’t even notice it was a thing.  But now I can see it, and I feel I should preface this with the vague operating definition we’ll be using.

It seems that as social creatures we have an instinct for ranking ourselves with regards to others – we can’t escape a compulsion to form a self valuation, often at an absurdly young age.  I was among peers, middle childing.  We both suffered a great deal of neglect and abuse (myself more the former, you more of the latter), but I had peers in my siblings, which helped me establish a baseline sense of myself as acceptable.

This is the thing: Self esteem is, in part, our baseline valuation of ourselves.  You’re the abyss, I’m Bazooka Joe chewing gum.  The perverse twist here is that you have self respect.  How would you differentiate self esteem and self respect?  For the listeners.

BfS: I hope they can’t really hear me… well… It’s funny that I don’t know that I would have made the distinction between the two myself, until we began to talk more about it. I knew I had lousy self esteem, but never would have thought of my self respect as being anything remarkable. I guess I would say that it’s a feature of having a strong sense of justice. Even though I can’t regard myself, I know that I don’t deserve to be treated poorly. Seems stranger for someone to have the reverse.

GAS: That is exactly how I would have stated it.  We’ve talked about your dreams before, and an occasional theme of them is righteous indignation.  You stand up for the oppressed, or call situations out as unreasonable.  It’s part of who you are.

You can’t love yourself in the tiniest degree, but you can say, hey, the unlovable deserve a baseline level of respect and rights.  It’s a deeply weird combination.  It makes sense to develop the one to make up for the lack of the other, as a kind of defense mechanism maybe.  The remarkable thing about it is that you have probably better self-respect than most people.  It’s impressive.

BfS: Thanks? 🙂 I like to imagine it’s a bit more dignified than the other way.

GAS: It is.  Self esteem is a funny beast because I think it puts someone like myself on a grade to narcissism, capable of some loathsome levels of disregard for others.  And people like myself can’t help but show our ass at every opportunity.  We feel entitled to share our opinions at all times and in all venues, whether that’s sensible or not.  The difference between a commenter and a lurker.  The lurker is never embarrassed.

BfS: Interesting you should mention that, as I once did a research project on ‘lurkers’ — AKA the majority of people on the internet.

GAS: I’ll take this aside for a moment.  Any interesting conclusions, or was it too hard to find anything out about the ghosts in our machines?

BfS: It probably would have been more interesting to focus on the commenters, as they’re such a small fraction of users, less than one percent in many cases. Probably the most interesting thing I gleaned was asking people why they didn’t comment, and they generally said ‘I didn’t think anyone would care.’ Which is mostly true. So what makes commenters think otherwise?

GAS: Self esteem!  Back to the point, seamlessly.  I didn’t notice this about myself until I got to know somebody better who formed a stark contrast to it.  I have something inside, not like a voice but just as powerful as if it was.  It’s a sense of entitlement, maybe.

I just don’t doubt for a second that I’m important enough to matter in a conversation, despite all evidence to the contrary.  Does that make sense?  I can see the vast size of the human species, in our billions, and our cosmic insignificance.  And yet I feel like I could be one of the grandiose npr liberals @ing the fascist orange on twitter, if I used that platform.

BfS: Sounds pretty wild, my dude.

GAS: They say you have a slow wave in your brain.  Something isn’t as powerful as it should be, hence the depression and such.  But to you it’s like time is standing still, stretching out into a horrid infinity.  This is a little off topic, getting into depression more generally.

The reason I bring it up is that it seems like as powerfully intelligent as you are, and as much as you get done compared to the rest of us, wiling away your dark infinities, how could there be anything slow about you?  But science mans said there is.

BfS: That’s true, my neurologist said it would be normal for a 70 year old man. Does seem strange, doesn’t it? That people being able to sit still to watch a TV show have more active energy in their brains than I do. Takes a lot of energy to feel okay, apparently.

GAS: And that’s the magical mystery.  I feel like I am not doing anything extra at all.  When I see you hating yourself, it seems so energetic, so much like that is the extra.  That is the energy.  But no, I am the one with energy.  It’s an invisible energy that says, hey dude, the world is yours.

BfS: You got tha power.

GAS: But you say it seems like everyone around you is bottomed out barbiturate zombies.  Nobody has the energy for a real conversation at your speed, or at least depth.  You say something meaningful and one of us is like, “Cool bro.  Imma go watch commercials for laundry detergent now.”  It just seems funny to think that slow wave produces more thought than whatever energy it is that allows me to live in comparative bliss.

BfS: Yeah, that it takes more juice to sit around and watch the Avengers for the 10000th time than to have a decent conversation. Does really astound me how difficult it is for some people to think about anything. Nothing to do with intelligence, it could be about their opinion on peanut butter cups. I’ve had better conversations with four year olds than some adults. And to think, that being an undead on downers is actually more processor-intensive?

GAS: I’m probably a little aberrant in this respect, a little more chatty.  But I’m a lot closer to them than I am to you.  Something that’s become a topic of discussion in our lives pretty often is the difference between passive and active media.  Writing, RPGs, even some video games require some active engagement.  Reading books, watching movies, listening to music, perusing social media – these are the things that can wash over you.  Minimal effort, passive.

For a person like myself, passive media is an anesthetic to chill me out after the tension of a day’s work.  But you have no attention span for passive media.  Can hardly watch TV and movies, always have to be doing something active.  It seems exhausting.  You are allowed no anesthetic.

BfS: Even listening to music seems a bit beyond most people these days. They gotta hear it 10+ times before they can decide if they like it or not. I guess to me, if I was chilling out that much, I’d just go to sleep! And I hate going to sleep.

GAS: Guess that’s getting off topic into the undiagnosed ADHD territory.  Bringing it back, you have the major depression / nega self-esteem combo, even if it’s higher speed than people expect.  It’s vexing.

It’s one of the things that convinces me there is no justice or inherent goodness in the universe, certainly no god: that humans are cursed with having this self-valuation.  We can’t just be – we have to rank ourselves.  And for some people that means never knowing what it’s like to feel alright.

What’s the best you’re able to feel, and how do you do it?

BfS: Oh man, I have this app that tracks your mood, and I’m basically ‘fine,’ tops. I went to a couple good concerts that bumped it all the way up to ‘good’ back in 2019. Best for me is being able to focus on something I’m interested in and forget I exist.

GAS: For me, it feels like I always forget I exist.  I can lose myself in anything that catches my eye.  I’m not a consideration or sticking point in my own life, which is one reason self esteem is invisible to me – feels like a non-thing.  But it seems like, if this slow wave of yours is related, maybe my self esteem is a constant reassurance that I am OK, and can safely be forgotten.  Sound about right?

BfS: It could be, might be a secondary thing. I’ve met people with lousy self esteem that can seem to forget while they veg out, and only feel bad when they get reminded of their own existence.

GAS: The other way this difference between us manifests is in loneliness.  I rarely feel lonely, but you often feel that way.  I’m not socializing any more than you are.  Why the difference?  Is my self esteem, my fast wave if you will, something like company to me?  An unspoken voice in my head?  Or is it just that the pain of hating yourself makes you feel the need to be more engaged – as a way of getting outside of your own mind?

BfS: It could be as simple as an extrovert/introvert thing, I might be some kind of repressed extrovert for all I know. We know some people with bad self esteem that are also extreme loners, so it’s hard to say.

GAS: It’s vexing to know I can be over here chilling, and just being in the same room as you without speaking, I’ll feel good about that.  Like I have whatever company my mind needs.  Meanwhile, the reverse can never be true.  I am insufficient funds for your social needs.  I’m not offended, exactly, but I do feel sad for you on the regular.

BfS: LOL it’s okay, man. Life sucks.

GAS: Well, per the words of the great sage Dr. Phil, I think there is a cure for your bad self esteem that you could try.  Might help.  Next time you feel inclined to hate on yourself, just simply STOP DOIN’ THAT.  It’s the wisdom of Texas.

BfS: (Insert thinking emoji) Will do.

—

And with that, he was cured!

–

Choose Your Own Adventure

I wrote like the first third or fourth of a choose your own adventure novel last month. I’ve got the pages hyperlinked so you can read it from the beginning here. Unlike the original CYA books, this one sometimes has choices and sometimes has “variables” where you should choose the option that matches a choice you made earlier in the book. If anyone reads this thing, let me know if you run into stuff that doesn’t work or causes problems.

It’s a sort-of-erotic sci-fi space thing. Probably there should be some content warnings here, but I’m not sure what. I don’t remember anything being too egregious. There is one option where you are not respecting a person’s boundaries, but they already made you a captive in the story, so is it more problematic than the setup itself? Don’t know.

I wrote it so that the reader is the main character, which meant making every direct reference to you gender neutral. Hopefully not too awkward. The writing is a cheesy first draft, but not as cheesy as it probably should be. I feel like I need to make the writing more melodramatic and big, give the characters more distinct voices. But never mind all that. Have a go at it, if you please.

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The Mysterious Allure of Spider Sauce

This is one of my main mans, Hecubus. He is a cat. Looks kind of oily in this picture, maybe he needs a bath. Anyhow, the point: He has a wet nose. It’s the perfect amount of wetness for a cat. See a cat trailing snot? Might be sick. See a cat with a nose that’s bone dry? That’s not what a cat nose is supposed to be like. I suspect this optimal cat nose wetness gives him a better sense of smell than other cats I’ve had in the past because he likes to sniff things more than the others.

The other day I killed a spider on my wall, apologies to our FtB thought control overlord. It left a barely perceptible smear on the wall. I flicked off the pieces of exoskeleton with the corner of my murder weapon. Hecubus did not bear witness to this event.

But later he found the spot on the wall, not even convenient to get to up behind a lamp. He found it with his sniffer, and came back to it later to sniff some more. I’ve seen him eat a spider once in his youth, but that was a few years ago. Does he remember the taste and smell on some level, and is therefore drawn to it? Or does spider sauce have a distinctive and potent smell to the right mammals, and just draw interest on the level of curiosity?

Without experimentation we can never know. I guess I’ll leave this one to science wizards. It’s gotta be in the list of things they’ll get to eventually. What is the allure of spider sauce?
–

Gender Anarchy

Yesterday was International Down With Cis Day, a good time for reflection on one’s relationship with the kyriarchy. A while ago I brought some discourse into an AFAB NB person’s casa that resulted in a burned bridge, but also left me unsatisfied. All around, a bad time, and my fault. Wrong place and time to wax socratic.

What I wanted was an answer to a doubt. A position one holds in life is strongest when one has considered and accounted for ways in which that position can be attacked – especially from within.

Transfeminine people have long been smeared with the idea their gender expression is just a sexual fetish – “autogynephilia” theory and such. This doubt is external in terms of systemic medical discrimination and internal in that it turns a transwoman’s natural sexual feelings into a source for wondering “am I just a pervert?” and delaying treatment for dysphoria.

To my thinking the transmasculine version of this doubt is this: In a world that is drenched in misogyny, “woman” is an insult. If you are AFAB but feel insulted or uncomfortable when people treat you as a woman, how can you tell if that’s actually gender dysphoria, nonbinary or agender feels, or if it’s just a natural result of living with misogyny?

On a DWC discussion with somebody, we came to an answer that pretty well satisfies me. This question has been kicking around the back of my head for about five years now and I’m glad to be more or less done with it. The answer lies in gender anarchy.

Basically, you shouldn’t be required to have a set reason for your gender expression. Consequently, any reason is valid, and that includes a reaction to misogynistic abuse. So what if you only disidentify with womanhood because the world is a misogynist hellhole? It’s like being asexual because of sexual abuse rather than a biological imperative: still valid.

The line of thinking that led to the question in the first place had a baked-in assumption that there are correct and incorrect reasons to be trans. What foolishness. Gender anarchy now!

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All is Well

All is well, I’m doing great.  Everybody en mi casa is
Peachy keen. I was sent home from work but they didn’t
Requisition enough equipment so I am cold chillin’.
I’m healthy and relaxed and it radiates from me to
Loved ones. They’re feeling it too.

Fortune has smiled on me and I’m smiling back.
Of course, the good times can only last so long. I’m
Optimistic civilization will remain intact by the time
Logistics are worked out and they call us back in.
Say, this plague ain’t so bad at all.

–

The Invisible Queer

Content Warnings: Suicide mention, Less than positive trans stuff.

Trans Day of Visibility, right?  A lot of trans people don’t love this occasion for a lot of reasons, and that’s fair.  Anybody should be allowed to be as invisible as they want to be.  Invisibility is by definition part of passing, which is the trans dream.  It is hard to argue with its usefulness to the people that it’s useful for: knuckleheaded cis people who need reminders of trans people’s humanity, and baby trans folks who need to see that life is possible – given their high rates of suicide.

Where do nonbinary, agender, and genderqueer people belong?  In a sense we’re trans, so should we be visibling out right now?  If we want to sure.  As for me, I’ll just reflect publicly on what being genderqueer means to me…

Or not.  It’s kind of personal, isn’t it?  It’s in my head, waiting for a future that is never going to come, like so many other things.  Sayeth my problematical inspiration, “Don’t dream it, be it.”  But I don’t have powerful dysphoria pushing me to make the choice between a life of facing bitter and extreme prejudice or living with crushing pain.  (And be real – passing isn’t possible for everybody, open and sometimes murderous prejudice is what I’d get.)

If it can be a dream for me, that’s enough for now, I think.  I might feel differently next year, if the ‘rona don’t take me out first.  Who can say?  In the meantime, ya might catch me in sequined shoes or wearing costume jewelry.  Just a little something to let you know what’s up.

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Who Else is Paid to Stay Home?

Where my teleworkers at? My workplace was shut down without full preparation for everyone to go on telework, so until they acquire a lot more gear, I’m getting paid to chill and check my email sometimes.  My last job was Malwart, so while it’s a shame to not have the inside track on getting groceries with less hassle, my situation is a lot less cruel.  #blessed lol.

Anyway, I know I’m lucky as hell here, even though it took 3 hours to get groceries at the Winco this morning.  How are you?

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I Know What You’re Thinking, Biden Dems

Obams=good. Obams like Joe. Joe=good. Bring back time when president nice.

Alternately – and more venal –

Obams=economy good. Economy=my personal comfort. Joe=successor to Obams. Make economy good.

This is the thinking of people who wish they could vote for Bill Clinton again. At least he made the economy good. Therefore your retirement fund is less scary. It’s the safe choice.

Except it isn’t. Conservative dems are going to be like that Trudeau up in Canada. Make nice words while they line their pockets with money from petroleum, prison labor, and the war machine.  Burn down the world to make a little gold.

Don’t you give even a tenth of a shit about your children? Choke on your binkies you adult babies.

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Ghost Pangolin Breath

I’m sure there’s a billion people in china that don’t go in for medical woo that involves slurping down nature’s rare wonders. I just wanted to say to the other ones, this is not the recommended use for chopsticks motherfuckers.

To be honest I find the idea covid entered humans via pangolin consumption a little suspect, if only because it seems tailor-made to appeal to aggrieved environmentalists like myself. It is an evocative idea, isn’t it?

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Under the Sign of the Rabbit

I got this job about a year ago.  Used to see rabbits about every day there.  Less so in the winter, but I still see them sometimes.  On the way to catch the bus in the dark, the streetlights silhouette a tree stump making it look like a rabbit.  Above is the moon.  Across the ocean there’s some people who say there’s a rabbit in that celestial body.  Stopped to get a new litterbox for my cat.  The place in the store that normally has cats to adopt only had rabbits.  My favorite movie of 2019 had prominent rabbits.  This wasn’t that movie, but it’s a pretty good depiction of the mood in life.